I hadn't read this in years. It's acerbic and filled with dark energy. It manages to be self-deprecating and egotistical at the same time. It's honest, except he's not a reliable narrator. It's great stuff.

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I mean, I am literally shoving a Panera Sierra sandwich and heaping serving of salad into my maw simultaneously while typing this. But as I have mentioned before, much like Jim Gaffigan I am an eatie, not a foodie. I’m also trying to avoid being on My 600 Pound Life by doing these lunch hour/weekend walks (with some guilty pleasure viewing of various Househoes and all other things Bravo has to offer while either on the rower or elliptical as “two a days” as penance for killing all of my brain cells on trash T.V.).

You would think a book all about food might be counterproductive. You’d be wrong, though, . . . well at least as far as the audiobook is concerned. As I’ve already said I’m an eatie, so tons of the dishes referenced were things I would need to Google which leads to another plus of audio which is the inability to Google while hauling my dumper around the park and trying to avoid the very goosey geese who oftentimes are blocking the trail . . . .

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Since I’ve started these “walk ‘n talks” I’ve leaned toward memoirs since they don’t have a plot to follow or typically more than a mention of additional “characters.” My preference is for them to come off as conversational rather than simply reading off a script, delivery is important and the more intelligent (be it I.Q. in the writing or emotional as far as the reflection on their life) the better. But most importantly is that it gets my ass moving. Bourdain’s frenetic pace of narration and almost free association style of rambling off menu items, kitchen banter, whathaveyou most certainly did the trick. Such a shame he’s no longer with us, his passion for food and life just oozed out of every page (minute) of this book.

4.5 Stars and rounding up

I love food and I love hot sexy chefs with potty mouths.
I remember first discovering Anthony Bourdain on the Food Network many years ago. It was 3am and I was unable to sleep and here was this brooding, hot piece of ass chain smoking and touring Russia.
I never remembered his name but he haunted my dreams until I re-discovered him years later on the Travel Channel show, No Reservations.
In Kitchen Confidential, he is able to translate his sultry self onto paper.
But he is not just a piece of meat, my friends. He is a very good writer with a quit wit and he conveys a passion that touched my [fill in the blank] like no other.
Anthony Bourdain pretty much despises vegetarians, but I do not hold it against him. In fact, he makes me wish I was a heartless carnivore like him. And we would eat steak tartar together and take bathes together in a pool of goats blood.

I've said too much. I'm sorry.

If I was interested in becoming a chef would I have liked this book more?

If I liked Anthony Bourdain would I have liked this book more?

Hard to say, but I think the answer to the first question might be "Maybe, but doubtful" and the answer to the second question is, "Probably not".

I thought the beginning of Kitchen Confidential was interesting but I don't need anyone advising me not to eat in restaurants with dirty bathrooms or to treat servers with respect. It was this blow-the-lid-off-the-restaurant-industry type of hype that brought me to Kitchen Confidential, but after the first couple of chapters of this type of not-so-eye-opening "insider" information, it was all downhill.

To be honest - and this biased my view of the book - I'm not a fan of the "Shock" celebrity in today's media. Shock jocks, shock politicians, shock pundits and now, at least with this book, shock chefs. If you have something to say, please say it, I'm interested. But if what you have to say relies on insulting various groups of people and using offensive language to make a point or color a story, or if your abrasive dialogue is too often used to hammer home the idea that you're better/smarter/cooler than the people you're talking to, you can save it for someone else. The reality might be that you are better/smarter/cooler than the people you're talking to, but let us come to that conclusion ourselves.

In the end, after wading through insults to vegetarians and people who like to order items on the side and pretty much anyone Mr. Bourdain has worked with (or for) in his restaurant career, as well as droning stories of drugs and sex, I found little of any substance in Kitchen Confidential. Beyond that, I found Kitchen Confidential to be little more than a boring and vulgar rant by a chef/author who maybe spends a little too much time in front of the mirror thinking all sorts of wonderful things about himself and whose stories and writing remind me of the reminiscences of 28-year-old at his ten-year high school reunion. Like the food I send back, this one is tasteless and undercooked.

The suited book for those who like to cook and like to eat.
The suited book for those who want to make their living from cooking.
The suited book for those who ask questions and are patient enough to hear the answers. Even if they won't like them...

3.5 stars. I absolutely loved all of Anthony's travel shows. He was a complex and fascinating person - extremely direct, flawed, passionate, unconventional and very funny. He also had a very engaging way with words. Although I liked this (except for the chapter on how to cook like a chef - I don't cook at all), I would have loved to hear more about his travels. I did enjoy learning more about his chosen profession and now have real respect for anyone in this line of work.

There is a chilling bit of Kitchen Confidential that should probably be more off-putting to me than it was, but for me it was the best reason for reading the book, and it redeemed some of Anthony Bourdain's worst excesses (particularly his love of adjectivally laden similes).

The moment comes when he is discussing the suicide of a Sous Chef, the assistant to a friend, who killed himself the night he was fired from his job.

A few things come out of this. Bourdain expresses an anger towards those who would kill themselves, yet he also sees suicide as an inevitability for those who take their own lives. He seems to see suicide as destined, something that no one but the one who kills him/herself can be responsible for. Simultaneously, he sees suicide as something that can be staved off, and that those who speed the coming of suicide through their actions are absolutely responsible for, even complicit in the suicide. He reveals his anger at both life and death. He offers, moreover, a warning about the industry he loves so much: that restaurants and the life of food service is a life that lends itself to suicide by attracting the suicidal and giving them a place to exist for a short time that can only end badly.

And this is all so chilling because only a few month ago he took his own life. Whatever note Bourdain left when he killed himself, he had already written his true suicide note eighteen years before his death. Kitchen Confidential is a manifesto of how to live while living, a desperate cry for help, an act of penitence, a farewell.

It's not the best book I've ever listened to, but listening to Bourdain speak his own words with his suicide in my mind made Kitchen Confidential intimate and more powerful than it could ever have been on the page.

I knew very little about Bourdain, so this excellent memoir was such a nice surprise. A fascinating man and a very good writer.

Excellent, vivid read about life in restaurant kitchens. Very atmospheric and I feel like I learned a lot about a very specific culture.

Oh, Anthony Bourdain... How I love you! I have no idea why it took me so long to read his very first memoir. Amazing, hilarious, witty, educational, enlightening, entertaining, intriguing, original, honest... This should be mandatory reading for every first year CIA student. For anyone unfamiliar with this use, that is The Culinary Institutes Of America, Bourdain's Alma Mater, not The Central Intelligence Agency. Of course, (Fortunately? Unfortunately?, although I was not in the industry long enough to personally attest to its accuracy, I have full confidence in Bourdain's authority based on conversations with acquaintances whom have, as well as other research.

We read about his years as Anthony Bourdain, before becoming The Anthony Bourdain; his decades in all areas of the industry, horizontally, vertically, laterally, diagonally; from dishwasher to prepper to student to line cook to saucier to sous chef to head chef to executive chef; from eye-opening taste of vichyssoise to world-opening oyster to shanking fellow cooks to fucking fellow cooks to twenty hour days to alcoholic tendencies to five packs a day to caffeine dependent nights to unemployed heroin addict to heroin addict running a three star kitchen to unemployed sober to vowing to never be a chef again to running a celebrity establishment; from SoHo to 12th street to Market District to The Grammercy District to Theater Row to Connecticut to The Rainbow Room aloft The Empire State Building to gay-friendly to Italian Dining to French @ Les Halles... A chapter devoted to the lexicon of the kitchen, another to instruction on beautiful plating, one to Members of The Kitchen, another to the necessity of intimacy with the Sous-Chef (closer than a wife), one to a character named Adam-Last-Name-Unknown, one to a "Day In The Life" of a great chef, one to how anyone can appear to be a chef (provided one has interest in food, some intelligence, & an innate reasonable sense of flavor), one to what he calls The Wilderness Years, & seriously important "So You Want To Be A Chef?" Although, it is obvious to me that the entire thing is a "So You Want To be A Chef?"

Part memoir, part diary, part expose, part journalism, part textbook, but always honest, straightforward, informational, and funny. Read this masterpiece. Agree with his overstated (and often unnecessarily blunt) opinions or not, his insider information, extensive experience, witty insight, and unique views can hardly be denied to have authority.

This was my book club read for June, although it had been on my TBR for years! When this was written back in 2000, it was groundbreaking and shocking. It was the advent of celebrity chefs and everything that industry has brought to food and restaurants.

I have long been a Bourdain fan, we watched all of his shows and his enjoyment of food and travel has encouraged us more than once to get out of our comfort zones and to embrace new and unique experiences. I was devastated when I heard news of his suicide, I feel like the world is a bit less bright without him in it.

I liked this book but didn't love it. I loved that he reads the audiobook, because hearing his inflection and emphasis made me know when he was being serious and when he was being sarcastic. Some parts of this book are eye-opening and interesting, you definitely won't look at a restaurant or its food the same way again. Yet other parts of the book get really tedious, going through endless names of people and different restaurants kind of made me glaze over. I am not familiar with any of these people or places, so those parts didn't connect with me.

Overall this is a fascinating look at Bourdain's start and early days working as a chef in restaurants and his path and journey in life. There's some good advice here to aspiring chefs and "regular" people who just like to eat in restaurants.

Advanced warning: I tend to take on the vernacular of whomever I'm reading, so now might be a good time to mention that Anthony Bourdain has a very colorful ... er ... style.

So, I've finished reading Anthony Bourdain's book Kitchen Confidential, which is basically about all the craziness that goes on behind the scenes in the restaurant world. As I started reading the book, I thought I'd be of one of two minds by the end: either I'd never want to eat out again, or I'd want to chuck the teaching career and become a chef. Now that I've finished the book, I can honestly say that I really don't want to do either. I still will eat out although I'll never have fish on Monday -- not that that's too difficult since I don't order fish unless I'm actually at a place where I can smell the salt water. And I don't want to become a chef. I'm not at all suited for that craziness when the mad rush comes in.

However, what I would love to do is to figure out how to take Bourdain's Gonzo-style management and use it in teaching. The thing about Bourdain is that he just takes his balls out and lays them on the table and says "Yep, there they are. Look at them." He's just the best kind of badass because he has the talent to back up his swagger, but he also is plenty capable of fucking up. The thing that's so sexy about that, though, is that when he does screw something up, he owns it. Is it occasionally inappropriate to lay one's balls on the table and issue the directive to look at them? Yes. Absolutely. Does he fall apart when he realizes that he's done the wrong thing? No. He shrugs his shoulders and accepts the repercussions. This isn't to say that he doesn't care or that he is a complete asshole. There is plenty of evidence in the book that he does care and that he takes his fuck-ups to heart and tries to do better--to correct the dish so that it works the next time. I already kind of have this attitude in teaching -- I have tried some things that haven't worked, and I've tried to own it and accept the repercussions, but I think I'll try to acknowledge this attitude a bit more, and I would really like to figure out how to get my students to take this attitude towards their writing.

This really struck me this week as I was finishing Bourdain's book and a list-serv that I'm a member of was filled with temporary and adjunct instructors who are all upset about an article that appeared in the June issue of The Atlantic Monthly. A majority of the members of the list are upset because the author of the article, who teaches as a community college and at a lower-tier state school, basically points out that not everyone is capable of passing a college English course and that it is often the job of those who teach the entry level courses, i.e., the people who stand on the lower rungs of the academic ladder, to be the hatchet men of academe. I agree with the author of the article. In an ideal world, as teachers, we want to help anyone who wants to learn. But nationwide, and especially in my state, we don't live anywhere near ideal when it comes to education.

Anyway, I'll start to get my syllabi ready for the fall semester soon, and as I do, I will be trying to figure out how to take a different approach to teaching this semester. A Gonzo-style approach.